If you don’t like the beginning of a novel, how long do you read before deciding whether it’s worth it to finish the book? I will read 50 so-so pages, but I understand from fellow bibliophiles that this is a generous number. I see why they feel this way: we all have limited time and there are many other things, easier things, we could do for entertainment.
What’s a writer to do to make their novel engaging from page one? Start in the right place. To paraphrase author and editor Allison K. Williams, if you open a novel to page 51 and you know what’s going on, cut the first 50 pages.
How do you start in the right place?
Don’t mistake procrastination for suspense
I’ve been reading a young adult novel that tries very hard to do the things that writers are told to do. The protagonist is in crisis. She is evaluating her life and her relationship to the family she loves, a family that isn’t serving her best interests. Her emotional state as a part of her coming-of-age is relatable and realistic. But we don’t know what events are causing her to feel the way she does.
The novel moves back and forth in time before it settles into the present, making the first chapter something of a prologue. These unconnected scenes are meant to create interest in the story as the protagonist (let’s call her Sue) makes her way back to college after being home with her family. Terrible things happened while Sue was at home, but the reader doesn’t know what they are. Sue is full of anguish. She ruminates about her family’s background and structure and her strict, religious immigrant parents. I’m sure the author mistakes this for suspense. But since the reader doesn’t yet know Sue or her family, they can’t imagine what tragedies have taken place. They aren’t invested. The longer this ‘suspense’ goes on, the more the novel drags.
This procrastination leads to the second problem with the opening pages.
The first chapter is working mightily to be literary with numerous descriptive passages full of imagery. Most of these passages are unsuccessful at drawing the emotion that would justify their inclusion. Because—again—the reader doesn’t know why they’re there. If the first chapter had been cut entirely, the novel would have been better.
Literary agent Donald Maass has this advice about how to include imaginative detail so that it serves the story.
“It would seem, then, that the keys to getting readers to imagine your story are sensory descriptive detail and emotional situations. To a large degree that’s true; however, there’s more to it. How strongly imaginative cues work also depends on the reader’s state of mind while reading.”
Takeaways
- If the first chapter can be cut without making the story unclear, cut it.
- There has to be a reader reward in the first chapter. This doesn’t need to be a climatic scene of any sort (it is the beginning, after all). A solid reward comes when the protagonist has a problem and the reader knows the stakes involved in solving it. In the novel discussed above, Sue is in crisis because one of her siblings has died tragically and another has been forced into an arranged marriage to an abusive husband. The reader doesn’t know this until the second third of the novel. I’m guessing most readers have quit at that point.
- Fine language needs a purpose. If it doesn’t have one, it devolves into purple prose.
Singer songwriter Pete Seeger said, “The easiest way to avoid wrong notes is to never open your mouth and sing. What a mistake that would be.” The same is true of writers who are afraid of making a bad start. I’d venture that every emerging novelist starts their work in the wrong place. But, thankfully, writing is rewriting and distillation is good practice.
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